Sequester Math

There’s been a lot of talk about the “draconian” cuts associated with the Washington, D.C. sequester – a.k.a. the incredibly modest reduction in federal excess which kicked in last week.

And while these “cuts” come on the heels of a record ramp-up in deficit spending (in fact they were a condition of that ramp-up), U.S. President Barack Obama and his allies in the legacy media have been going out of their way to exaggerate their impact on “middle class families.”

That’s why it surprised us to see a kernel of truth coming from National Public Radio (NPR) – which has historically been nothing but a government funded mouthpiece.

“The White House has been saying spending will be reduced by $85 billion this year,” NPR reported last week. “The Congressional Budget Office, however, just released a new report saying the cuts will only amount to $42 billion.”

According to NPR, the difference lies in the difference between “budget authority” (i.e. the amount agencies are authorized to spend) and “cash outlays” (i.e. the amount agencies are actually going to spend). In other words just because Congress budgeted $1 billion for a bunch of new drones – it doesn’t mean all of those drones will be purchased this year.

The sequester cuts were originally supposed to total $110 billion a year. Obama and “Republican” leaders in Congress balked at the first two months of those cuts, though, dropping the figure to $85 billion. Now we learn the actual reduction in spending over the rest of the fiscal year (which ends on September 30) is going to be less than half that total – $42 billion.